Mandriva Linux 2008 is now available for download on the official site (release announcement), and on the network of public mirror servers. 2008 includes all the latest software and enhancements over previous Mandriva releases. You will find KDE 3.5.7 and the new GNOME 2.20 already integrated, kernel 2.6.22.9 with fair scheduling support, OpenOffice.org 2.2.1, a 3D-accelerated desktop (Compiz Fusion and Metisse), Firefox 2.0.0.6, and much more. You can read about the new features of Mandriva Linux 2008 in depth in the Release Tour. The release notes contain important information on changes from previous releases. The errata will contain information on any future known issues and solutions for them.

The reason I always liked it a lot for unsophisticated users was the control center tools. Everything in one place, easy for them to find and use. Once you explain the difference between configuring the desktop and configuring the system, they find it quite easy to manage.

The thing that turned me off it was the instability with the 10x onwards. Not of any particular version, but the upgrade process. For a while it seemed like trying to move from one annual release to the next was totally unpredictable in what it would do. Sometimes it worked flawlessly, other times it resulted in an unbootable system, other times the result was unstable. One occasion I just could not get it to even do a clean install, and this was on more than one machine.

If you find yourself in this situation, you hopefully have taken a Debian disk with you to the site, and you don't have a lot of choice, you just pop it in and go. Yes, administering it is going to be quite a bit more complicated for them. But at least it works, and it upgrades reliably.

I'm 80% on the download now, but am really in two minds about whether to even try this, or to just migrate them straight to Debian...

This is probably the real argument about Debian - its not package management as such, at least as regards packages, its more the system upgrade process, and how labor intensive and fraught it is when you have to do annual or every couple year system updates, and you have stopped trusting the process for a particular distro.

I don't trust any operating system, at all, during an upgrade process. I must just be pessimistic. Windows, [insert any Linux flavor here]... you name it. Even if the upgrade process technically works flawlessly, IMO it's still better to just start from scratch and have a nice, fresh, clean drive. With Linux distros and most other non-Windows OSes, it's a breeze, thanks to the ability to separate user directories from the main file system. With Windows... well, not quite, but having a spare NTFS partition/drive lying around eases the pain quite a bit.

That said, I'm sure there are some distros and operating systems out there that can keep going for years, even with regular upgrades. Debian, as others have mentioned above, is one; I've also heard that the BSDs are rock-solid when it comes to upgrading. Even if I were to run such a system, I would probably still do a complete reinstall every few years, even if not absolutely necessary, just for extra confidence. That, and to clean up all the crap that accumulates on the drive without having to bother looking through it

Besides... there's no fun cleaning up a mess. But starting a new OS installation from scratch, on the other hand... that can be pretty fun.